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New Ravenna Gracie Collection Mosaics

May 4, 2021

The New Ravenna Gracie collection is presented in collaboration with Gracie, makers of hand-painted wallpaper since 1898. Five Gracie designs were selected for interpretation into glass mosaics. The designs were chosen to represent international historic themes, from Roman and Chinese antiquity to the late Japanese Edo period and French Art Deco.

Linda’s Garden was inspired by an ancient frescoed Roman villa Linda Gracie admired on her travels to Italy. Blythedunes was originally based on rare antique Chinese wallpaper. Wave and Blossom has a precedent in18th-century Japanese stylized stream and plum blossom imagery. Waves represents the Gracie family’s love of the ocean and is influenced by a 17th-century hand-painted Japanese screen of the tumultuous sea. French Deco is an elegant motif of trees drawn from the work of eminent Parisian designer Armand-Albert Rateau. The silver leaf used in the wallpaper was replicated with antiqued mirror in the New Ravenna mosaic.

Gracie’s intricate designs were interpreted into mosaic by New Ravenna’s master mosaicists through varied techniques, colors and textures. First, scaling a dynamic section of each design to new dimensions, the designs were replicated in both the original colors of the hand-painted wallpaper and a New Ravenna customized palette. Central motifs were created in reflective jewel glass allowing the natural hand mixed variation of the glass sheets to replicate the feel of a hand-painted surface. Tumbled Sea Glass was used as background material to allow the characters in each design to remain dominant, and Gracie’s metallic leaf pigments were honored by using honed antique mirror and 24 karat gold glass. New Ravenna mosaicists used two techniques – hand nipping glass into similar size shapes in the traditional mosaic method and scoring the glass to create larger organic shapes – a method which is traditional of stained glass. Depending on the intricacy of the design, a panel of any size will take several weeks and multiple artisans to complete.

Mosaics in the Gracie collection can be customized in size and color to suit the designer’s preferences. Vertical indoor and sheltered exterior installation is recommended.

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